Lost Time
by goldnote
Summary: Rose decides whether or not to accept her new life with her new Doctor.


_I wrote this just for the heck of it, no point nor plot intended. No critique, please, just review if you enjoy. Happy Reading!_

Ever since that day at Bad Wolf Bay, since that moment when Rose had turned and noticed her "true" timelord leaving, and realizing she really could not ever see him again, The Doctor had tried his hardest to cheer his beloved girl up. Occassionally, he would get a smile, even an affectionate word or two, but she didn't allow him to touch her. Even when they sat on the couch together, their elbows couldn't be connect. The Doctor had tried his hardest to get Jackie involved in cheering up her daughter, to get her to help him show Rose that he really was the same person the blond haired angel had fallen in love with, just now with the added bonus of being part human. She truly was his angel, the mysterious and heavenly creature he had hoped beyond hopes of spending a normal life with. But The Doctor had slept on the couch since the night he arrived at the house Rose lived in with her mother, father, and new baby brother.

He noticed she at least let him hold her hand now.

It had taken weeks just to get to that point.

"Rose."

That whisper had woken her up from her dreams nearly every night. Rose had thought it would stop after her second fateful return to Bad Wolf Bay, after she lost The Doctor, the_ real _Doctor, all over again. But it had surprised her when, after she locked herself in her bedroom and fallen asleep crying, she heard his voice again. It hadn't given her any directions, never telling her anything at all. Mostly, he just repeated her name over and over again as she stood on the windy, rocky beach under the immeasurable night sky, looking up in desperation for some sign of the Tardis. Frantically, she would scan every inch of the sky, trying her hardest to look behind every star, calling back that she was waiting, she was there. But he never came and Rose always woke up with a start.

It had been like that for a month. Always, she dreaded going to her bed, even though it didn't matter where she was sleeping or what time of the day she slept, The Doctor always called to her. It just seemed like time trapped her in that moment right before midnight when she would say goodnight to the clone of her real Doctor and hug her mother and father. It could have been the fact she refused to hug him, the stranger downstairs, that made the dreams at night particularly vivid. Rose tried to find every excuse to stay away from The 'New' Doctor, even though she couldn't help her eyes wandering over to wherever he was and noticing whatever he was doing. It was still so unusual to turn around and see an exact copy of her beloved timelord making a sandwich in the kitchen or reading a book right there on her mother's couch. It was too... human.

Nearly every night, after she was woken up by the delicate breath of her name on her ear, she stayed awake for at least an hour, just laying there. Sometimes she tried reading to take her mind off things. Sometimes she would sneak through the small, two bedroom flat to the kitchen and get a glass of water, just for something to do. But mostly she would just lay there, wrapped around a pillow, wishing she had two more heartbeats to go along with her own.

One night, at least two months after seeing the Tardis for the last time, Rose had gone to bed silently, standing and leaving the living room after she found she couldn't keep her eyes from The 'New' Doctor. It would happen accidentally, just looking over at the window at the flash of headlights from the traffic outside or while twisting her head to scratch her neck. She would catch the curve of his foot and notice how it wasn't in a brown Converse shoe, or see those long fingers twisting the blue fabric of the blanket that always lay over the back of the couch. Since she refused to let him sleep in her room and there was no way The Doctor was going to be rooming with a married couple and a baby, he had permanantly moved the old blanket and slightly lumpy pillow to the couch. A touch of sadness, more extreme than the general ache that always resounded in her chest when she thought of her old Doctor, would bring Rose to the point where she had to leave the room for fear of breaking into tears. It was guilt, excessive amounts of guilt Rose brought upon herself for treating this man so terribly. He wanted to spend his life with her, his human time running out day by day, just as her own was in the process that was aging. He wanted her, his beautiful Rose, by his side always, to be his wife. Rose just couldn't bring herself to admit that the full blooded timelord was never coming back and the half human, half timelord was all she was going to get. Just saying to herself "all I'm going to get" made her feel selfish and even more guilty than a moment before. Living with all these emotions, all these tangles in her heart and mind and soul, annoyed her, too. Where was the defender of the universe now? It couldn't possibly have been her. No, that girl would have been stronger, smarter, and more willing to adapt to changes in the plans.

There was hardly any sound as The Doctor crept down the hallway and to the door of Rose's room. He stood there every night, hoping to work up courage to knock. He always left without a word, though, always. He knew Rose needed time to think, time to get used to the idea of possibly living a normal human life. The Doctor knew he was still half timelord, and was still every bit as clever as his counterpart, but he could feel the drain of living a human life take a toll on him by the end of every day. He didn't mind it so much, knowing he could at least be experiencing it with Rose, to hold her hand more than just during the moments where Jackie was about to cry for the hopelessness of bringing her daughter to realize she had an opprotunity to start a new, beautiful life with a man who loved her. But he wasn't experiencing life with Rose, not exactly. It was as though he was still living without her, forced to see an image of her every day but never able to touch or talk to her. Just to look at her and see the misery sketched on her face. He remembered a happier Rose, one who made his two hearts skip beats just with her smile. The one who would kiss his cheek and hold his hand when he admitted his weaknesses and battled his own inner demons. The one he could do the same with when it was Rose's turn for a test of the spirit. He bet neither of them had felt this alone since the first round of goodbyes at Bad Wolf Bay.

With a sigh, he left her door untouched and went quietly back down the stairs.

His voice had woken her again. Nothing was new about the situation. Hear her name, wake up, and stay awake until exhaustion took her over again. Rose knew the routine. She had decided to creep downstairs for a glass of water, allowing herself a handful of moments to study the form of the sleeping Doctor on the couch. He didn't look any different than the true timelord, just for the fact he looked so unhappy. Whenever she was with The Doctor, he had been happy, skipping and laughing and acting silly for all it was worth. This Doctor, the one snoring on the furneture, wasn't the same. She knew it was because of her rejection of him, of her disappointment. Rose had heard her mother telling The Doctor how long it had taken his beloved companion to function normally again after their first goodbye. Rose had tried to ignore the very human tear trickling down The Doctor's face when Jackie told him of the moment Rose had been pounding on the wall at the Torchwood in the new dimension that fateful day, and the seconds and days and months after The Doctor had been unable to say he loved her on the beach in Norway.

Rose drank her glass of water and hurried through the living room without looking at the couch. She had tried to deny the urge to walk over to where he was sleeping and apologize, to take his face in her hands and kiss him the same way she had done when they had been abandoned in those few minutes between their old lives and new. It was better to just resist temptation and ignore him, just as she had ignored her new life since her old one left.

It was a shock as Rose shut her door and saw the figure laying on the bed, but she didn't cry out or even utter a sound. She stood there, looking at the shadows on the face of the person with his hands behind his head, feet crossed, stretched out and looking around the room.

"Quite lovely, you know," The Doctor said, "I had always looked forward to sitting in this room and talking with you about our future."

"I don't think you should be here," Rose answered, continuing to stand perfectly still, wondering if this was actually just a dream.

"You're quite lovely, too, by the way. I've been meaning to say that lately. I've always wanted to say that."

The Doctor's chipper voice died off, fading away into the silence that became heavier and heavier within the tiny room. Rose, standing directly across from the bed, wrapped in her terrycloth pink robe, twisted her fingers together. The Doctor never flinched as he asked his next question.

"Do you love me?"

His voice was so soft, his words so timid. Rose couldn't look up from the carpet, biting her lips.

"Do you think you could love me like you once did?"

All those memories, flashing through her mind. Those picnics on forgein planets, fighting for their lives against creatures Rose couldn't have ever imagined existed, the hugs, the moments where Rose had sworn he was going to kiss her, the moments right after he didn't... They all came and went like the breeze that had blown the sand against her legs as the Tardis left her world one last time.

Finally, Rose looked up and saw the unflickering glimmer of hope in The Doctor's eyes. It was an ember nearly extinguished after the long weeks of heartsickness, of adapting to a new life, to a new way of living. The change had been as hard on him as it had been on her, an unbelievable thing to have had to live as a new species, to know your control over time and space had been taken away forever, to know you would die in tens of years instead of thousands, and never have the chance to live another life. With hesitant steps, Rose approached her own bed and reached out her hand, never noticing it was trembling.

"I will always love you, and always have."

The Doctor sat up, face never losing it's seriousness, taking Rose's hand for the first time in private. Rose sat down beside him, allowing herself to notice the way his hair ruffled or the way the pajamas that had once been Mickey's but were now his draped off his shoulders. He looked exactly the same, he _was_ exactly the same, just human. Just the one thing he had wondered what it was like to be for the fact it meant he would have a chance to live with Rose forever instead of seeing her grow old as he stayed relatively the same age as when he met her. Time was now a completely new thing, something that was not on his side.

"Rose."

As he said her name, he laid back down on the bed, pulling her with him. The Doctor wrapped her tight against him and put his face in her strawberry scented hair, still wary that, at any moment, Rose could pull away and never look at him again. Now wasn't the time to rush things.

"We could still travel. Airplanes are wonderful inventions, and I can't remember the last time I've been on a boat that's actually traveled across water. There wouldn't be a single dangerous situation we couldn't get ourselves out of and, even if we did encounter an alien or two, it would be like old times. Rose, my dear Rose, don't cry."

"I'm so- so sorry," she choked out, sobs rendering her breathless.

"Shh. It's okay. It just took this long for all of this to come out, that's all."

"You waited- I was so mean. You stayed when- when you could have left and- lived a different life."

The Doctor waited until Rose had calmed down enough to pull away from the fragrant nest of hair he had his nose in. Carefully, he wiped her cheek with the back of his hand.

"I couldn't imagine being anywhere without you ever again. I would rather have one life with you than all the years the universe could offer me. I'm the luckiest man and I would be damned if I ever left you for anything else."

Rose smiled weakly and took his hand, salty with her tears, in her own. Here was her future, right in front of her, it's handsome eyes looking right back. What more could she ask for?

As she snuggled against the heat of the body next to her, and felt that body relax against hers, Rose gave herself up to the singular heartbeat. It would be months until The Doctor asked her to marry him and months after that until they made love. It would be two years until the wedding and many trips around the world before The Doctor and Rose created a life of their own to look after and care for. The dream of seeking the Tardis, seeking the true timelord, only occurred every few months, and whenever she woke up to her name being whispered, it was by the man next to her who would always be holding her tight.


End file.
